Party Games: Mario Party

For a research assignment my group has been asked to create a timeline for social board games. This includes Mario Party, so I should get it out of the way now.

Mario Party is a video game series based on around a virtual board game. The players must compete with each other and must move around the board by rolling a dice (or multiple) and try to collect coins and stars to beat their opponents.

Here is an example of standard Mario Party Gameplay.

The main feature of Mario Party games is that every turn the players must take part in a mini-game. The winner(s) are rewarded with coins.

Here is an example of a 4 player mini game in the original Mario Party. It's called Hot Bob-omb. The players must throw the bomb to each other until one player has the bomb and it blows up in their face. The other 3 players win.

Mario Party games introduce new elements now and then. Mario Party 2 added items which can be used on a players turn. For example, a player could obtain a mushroom from an item mini-game and the use it next turn to roll 2 dice instead of just one. Mario Party 3 added a story mode and duel mode.

"Duel Mode introduces a new game mode to the Mario Party Series that has two players duking it out with partners. Players move around a board, much like the Battle Royale boards, trying to catch up with the other player and have their partner attack their opponent. Each player has 5 pieces of heart that serve as a life meter. Each partner has different stats in attack power and defense health along with a salary that must be paid every turn. Duel Maps do not feature a mini-game after every turn but they do feature a spot on the map that will start a mini-game once passed 5 times. The game is over once one of the players loses all of their heart pieces or the limit of turns are up. There are no items in Duel Map boards." (http://mariopartylegacy.com/marioparty3/modes/duelmode/)

So far, there have been 11 Mario Party Games ranging from the the first on Nintendo 64 in 1999 (1998 for Japan) up to Mario Party 9 on the Nintendo Wii in 2012.